18,000 Iraqis held in U.S.-run detention centers

Walter Pincus, Washington Post

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, April 15, 2007

2007-04-15 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- In the past month, as the new security crackdown in Baghdad has begun, U.S. forces have arrested 1,000 Iraqis, bringing to 18,000 the number of detainees being held in two U.S.-run facilities in that country.

The average stay is about one year in these detention centers, but some 8,000 of the current detainees have been held longer, including 1,300 who have been in U.S. custody for two years, according to a statement provided by Capt. Phillip Valenti, public affairs officer for Task Force 134, the U.S. Military Police group handling detainee operations.

"The intent is to detain individuals determined to be true threats to coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces and stability in Iraq," said Valenti. "Unlike situations in the past, these detainees are not conventional prisoners of war."

Instead, he said, they are "diverse civilian internees from widely divergent political, religious and ethnic backgrounds who are detained on the basis of intelligence available at the time of capture and gathered during subsequent questioning." Valenti said 250 of those currently in custody are third-country nationals, including some high-value detainees.

Last month, according to military spokesmen in Iraq, the United States held 17,000 detainees -- 13,800 in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and 3,300 at Camp Cropper, outside Baghdad. One year ago, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis were held in U.S. facilities in Iraq, but that figure has grown and could reach 20,000 by the end of this year, according to military contracting documents.

Noah Feldman, a New York University law professor who helped draft the Iraqi constitution, expressed concern about whether family members are informed who the detainees are and where they are held. If there is no notification, "disappearing people is a bad, bad, practice."